Among various technologies being developed, Converged Personal Network Service (CPNS) is a service that allows devices in one Personal Network (PN) to access services outside that PN, e.g., another PN or other network. Generally the CPNS is implemented by a CPNS enabler which can include a CPNS server, one or more Gateways (GWs), and one or more PNEs (Personal Network Elements). A PN GW (or CPNS GW) generally connects one PN to another PN, e.g., using a mobile communication network. A PNE is a basic component that makes up a PN, and can be a single device or a group of devices. These components and general operations of the CPNS are also discussed in Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) telecommunications standards documents.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a CPNS enabler according to a related art. As shown in FIG. 1, a CPNS server can communicate and exchange data with one or more PN gateways, each of which in turn can communicate and exchange data with one or more PNEs in a PAN (Personal Area Network).
Each of the PNEs can communicate and exchange data with the PN gateways, other devices or PNEs in other networks, etc. Each of the PN gateways can communicate and exchange data with the CPNS servers, other PN gateways, PNEs, etc. Each CPNS server can also communicate with other servers, gateways, etc. For instance, the CPNS server and the PN gateway (e.g., mobile phone) can communicate with each other through a cellular network, while the PN gateway can communicate with the PNEs through the WPAN such as BLUETOOTH, NFC, WiBree, WI-FI, etc. Generally communications between the CPNS servers, gateways, and PNEs are carried out using known networks and techniques, e.g., BLUETOOTH, 802.11, WI-FI, WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network), cellular networks such as 3GPP, etc.
The CPNS server generally manages and controls communications among the PN gateways and PNEs so that applications and information among these units of the CPNS enabler may be shared with each other as needed to enhance the user experience. For instance, in FIG. 1, according to the CPNS service of the CPNS enabler, a user at one PNE (e.g., Portable Multimedia Player—PMP) can view GPS (Global Positioning System) information which is received from another PNE (e.g., GPS device) through a PN gateway (e.g., cellular phone). As a result, the user can have access to a more variety of services that are offered within the user's current PAN as well as outside the PAN.
The CPNS server also allows different services groups to be formed and operated, which has been proposed in the OMA telecommunications standards documents. Same information and applications are then shared within the service groups.
Although the CPNS enabler according to the related art provides various advantageous services including the service groups, improvements on the CPNS enabler can be made to provide further enhanced CPNS services. For instance, objects (e.g., applications) within one service group is shared with all the members of that service group. However, when multiple service groups are formed, one or more members (CPNS entity) may belong to multiple service groups and as a result, same objects are automatically shared among multiple service groups, which may not be desired. In the example of FIG. 2, the CPNS entity 5 belongs to both the Service Group 1 and Service Group 2. Similarly, the CPNS entity 8 belongs to both the Service Group 2 and Service Group 3. Then, an object (e.g., new application) uploaded by the CPNS entity 1 of the Service Group 1 will be shared with all the members of the Service Group 1 including the CPNS entity 5. But since the CPNS entity 5 also belongs to the Service Group 2, the same will then be shared with all the members of the Service Group 2. This unintended sharing of objects among multiple service groups is not desirable and may cause valuable resources to be undesirable shared (e.g., from the perspective of the application server) and wasted.